


Ashes

by AlwaysLying



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU, Canon Divergence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-04 20:23:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18611854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlwaysLying/pseuds/AlwaysLying
Summary: Loki can never resist grabbing the Tesseract when it's around him.  Why should this time - on a ship full of slaughtered Asgardians and Thanos's supporters - be any different?(Infinity War AU where Thor and Loki go planet-hopping for a few days while Thanos chases them.  Spoilers for the film.)





	1. Loki

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I will find you, no matter where you try to hide,” he said, quietly, to the sky – to space, to wherever the purple monstrosity hid.  “I will avenge my people.”

“We have a Hulk.” 

And the monster roared in, jumping over the Titan’s minions, bellowing in rage.  As soon as Thanos’s hand slackened, Loki quickly tackled his brother out of the way. 

The Hulk grappled Thanos to the ground and raised heavy fists. 

The Titan, startled, let go of the Tesseract. 

It clattered to the ground and bounced, a couple of feet, until it was by Thor’s side…

No one had eyes for it.  They were watching, transfixed, as the Hulk punched Thanos over and over, and the mad Titan snarled and pushed him away. 

Seizing the opportunity, Loki reached over.  His fingers brushed against the cube…

…and with a puff of blue smoke, the brothers vanished. 

…

“Thor.  _Thor._ ” 

He didn’t stir. 

“ _THOR._ ” 

His brother lay still, a trickle of blood oozing from the corner of his mouth, his eyes closed.  Loki held a hand to his mouth.  Yes, there was breath – his brother still lived – but for how long? 

He stood and cast his eyes to the distance.  No sign of any ships.  Perhaps Thanos couldn’t transport instantaneously, the way Loki could with the Tesseract.  Or maybe – a chilling thought – maybe Thanos and his minions were still mopping up the rest of the Asgardian survivors. 

“I will find you, no matter where you try to hide,” he said, quietly, to the sky – to space, to wherever the purple monstrosity hid.  “I _will_ avenge my people.” 

At his feet, Thor groaned softly.  Loki quickly went to one knee beside him. 

Thor’s face twitched.  His eyelids fluttered.  Then…

Then he sighed, his face slackened, and he fell back into whatever unconscious stupor he’d been in for the past five minutes. 

There were gashes on Thor’s face, from when Thanos had squeezed his head like a ripe orange.  Loki held his hand over them and concentrated. 

His magic took longer than usual to surface – he’d spent it heavily on the ship, delaying the monsters, arming the Asgardians – so much that he’d hardly a trickle left when Thanos had demanded the Tesseract.  Five minutes wasn’t much time to recover. 

But it had to do. 

Slowly, it trickled out of him, reluctantly, and he forced more to come, until it was painful, a pressure building in the back of his mind, making him see stars.  More and more, until there was enough, and he wove it into Thor’s injuries, knitting them together, resetting bones and fixing fractures.  Everything except for whatever effects the Power Stone had had on Thor’s mind.  Loki wasn’t even sure how to go about fixing that. 

Loki sighed and sat down.  He ran the rest of his magic in a diagnostic sweep across his own frame.  Three cracked ribs.  A sprained ankle, a number of bruises.  Nothing too serious.  It could wait until he was better-rested. 

He looked up at the sky again. 

Still no sign of the Titan or his ship.  Loki didn’t know how long it would be.  Maybe days, maybe hours.  Maybe even minutes.  Thanos had somehow known the Tesseract was aboard the Asgardian vessel, so he must have had a way of tracking the stone.  He’d intercepted the ship before it arrived on Earth, which meant his ship could quickly travel over galactic distances. 

It would hardly matter, though, Loki supposed.  He’d keep an eye out for Thanos’s reappearance.  As soon as the ship landed, he’d teleport elsewhere, staying just slightly ahead.  Hopefully that would lure the Titan away from his people, buy them some time to receive aid from the forces of Earth. 

He needed a plan.  This game, this chase – it was a delaying tactic that would only wear him out within a few days.  And Thanos might quickly tire and soon go after other stones instead – Loki’s mind flashed to the Aether on Knowhere and the Mind Stone that had been in his scepter – where were they now? 

If he could find a way to get to the stones first, if he could unite them and bring the force of their power to bear against Thanos…

The haphazard beginnings of a plan began to sketch themselves in his mind.  Its chances weren’t good.  They weren’t even _decent_.  But it was better than nothing. 


	2. Heimdall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In retrospect, he should have seen Thanos's ship arrive.

In retrospect, he should have seen Thanos's ship arrive.  

He hadn't been looking ahead, only behind, for any signs that Hela or Surtur was following after, and... 

...and a use of his vision that was pure torment.  His sight never left the burning mantle of Asgard, searching for survivors he had not reached in time - and there were many.  He watched them, hundreds of desperate struggles as warriors and civilians alike were overwhelmed by the flames of Surtur or the dead warriors newly risen from Hel, and he whispered prayers for them, spoke to their deaths, tried to let them see through his eyes as he flashed through the galaxy, visions of nebulae, fields of stars like diamonds, the most beautiful planets they passed with softly flowing waterfalls and sunsets like glorious battle with the edges rounded and softened.  They died with their eyes golden, a last glimpse of otherworldly beauty, the only comfort Heimdall could offer them from galaxies away.  And as they died, burned or impaled, every last breath etched its patterns deep into his heart.  He would never forget them - the lives he'd lost, the lives that would never grace their new home because he, Heimdall, had failed to save them.  

...

Loki sensed the ship before he did.  A sense of foreboding - he said nothing, but Heimdall noticed his slight frown, a strain in his posture, as if he were a desert snake and the shadow of a vast bird of prey had just fallen over him.  Heimdall had begun to ask, then paused.  He felt it too.  

There was some vast wrongness, imposing in its menace, that shared the region of space with them.  Its presence was still, looming ahead, almost as if it had been waiting... 

At the front window of their ship, Thor started.  Loki turned to look, made his way over the resting bodies of Sakaarians and Aesir to stand with his brother.  

There it was.  The source of their foreboding.  

Still a speck in the sky, a tiny pinpoint, but it grew quickly as they flew nearer.  Loki grabbed the controls. 

“We have to turn around,” he said.  “We can’t bring our people near—”

“Afraid, brother?”  Thor said dismissively. 

Loki tensed.  Heimdall recognized the particular tension in the prince’s frame.  There was an astonishingly wide array of sentiments Loki could convey simply by a shift in his posture and slight changes in his expression; this was the anger that foreshadowed a fight, held back by the knowledge of more important things. 

“You’re a fool,” he told Thor bitterly.  “Lest you forget, you’re no longer just a warrior now – you’re a king as well.  Think of your people – how many warriors are there among them?  How many artists, how many farmers and children?” 

Thor scowled, casting his eyes – eye – over the surviving Asgardians aboard the ship.  He considered the matter for a long moment.   

Heimdall waited, interested.  How much had Thor changed since the four years he’d been on Midgard?  What had he learned from the death of his father, the loss of his hammer and the destruction of his entire realm? 

“Father would not have run from a fight,” said Thor at last, “and nor will I.  For,” he added, louder, addressing the rest of the ship—“are we not Asgardians?  Does valor not run in our veins?” 

This was received with loud cheers from the Asgardians, while the freed prisoners-with-jobs from Sakaar simply looked confused. 

Loki’s hand met his forehead, and Heimdall could not blame him.  Clearly Thor had learned the wrong lesson from his father. 

The ship loomed before them now, close enough that they could appreciate its massive scale; the twin pairs of wings flanking the pointed body that oddly resembled a cobra about to strike.  Another wave of unease hit Heimdall, but he pulled his sword from its scabbard and readied himself to shield the remaining Aesir from the worst of the attack.  He scanned the inside of the strange ship – a few unusual creatures, one with a horribly pinched mouth and black lips – and hoped that Thor had not picked a fight that would decimate their forces still further…

Then, from the dark, sinister ship, hatches opened to release smaller vehicles like flies in the distance that began to make their way over to the Asgardian vessel.  Thor smiled and clenched his fists, lightning crackling around his knuckles.  His eyes began to glow blue. 

Loki cast a worried glance out the windshield, and then turned back to the Asgardians. 

“How many of you are armed?” he asked. 

No response, and then, slowly, a few raised their hands, taking out weapons – kitchen knives and short metal clubs.  Some ran to the back of the ship to get farm implements out of storage compartments. 

The younger prince sighed. 

“Alright,” he said.  “Everyone not yet a thousand years old, stay in the hold beneath the ship.  Don’t come out, no matter what you hear.  Everyone else…” he looked over the ragtag bunch again.  His mouth tightened.  

“Form a line."   

Heimdall watched for a few moments as Loki used his magic to sharpen knives, turn pitchforks into savage pronged tridents, and remake any weapons that weren’t balanced for fighting.  More and more people crowded around him, holding up weapons, and he soon had to turn away many younger Aesir, snapping at them when they protested.  Heimdall stepped in and escorted them to relative safety while Loki spoke with the rest.  

As soon as he returned, Heimdall began to examine the monstrous ship.  The number of enemy forces was worrying.  The aliens were not ones whose powers he was familiar with; he’d amused himself by casting his eyes around the other realms before, but he’d only ever lingered as long as he had leisure to; the Nine were his highest priority, and now he regretted his focus.  Perhaps he would have known more about these aliens if only…

Then something caught his eye.  Some _one_ – a tall, heavyset purple monstrosity with grooves in his face and chin.  Someone whom even Heimdall took only a moment to recognize, and his blood chilled with dread. 

But it was now too late to turn and run. 

 

 

 

 


End file.
